Heritage Snapshot: Part 154

Marilyn J. Dart was born April 6, 1933, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Because her father, Merrill O. Dart, MD, a 1932 graduate of Loma Linda’s College of Medical Evangelists, was a physician in the Army Air Force for five years, her family moved frequently and she attended various grade schools from Florida to California, including a one-room school in Hemet, California. After attending Denver Junior Academy and graduating from Campion Academy in Loveland, Colorado, she became a pre-med student at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she met her future husband, Raymond Herber. Both majored in chemistry and biology. After she had finished college and he had finished his first year at the College of Medical Evangelists, Marilyn and Raymond married on June 27, 1954, in the Denver Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. They eventually had one boy and two girls. Marilyn graduated from the College of Medical Evangelists in 1958, interned at the White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, and worked as a school physician for Harriet B. Randall, MD, (CME Class of 1929) namesake of the Randall Amphitheater. Dr. Randall at the time was Administrator of Health and Medical Services for all Los Angeles City schools. In 1977, as the mother of three, Marilyn completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Riverside General Hospital and University Medical Center and Loma Linda University Medical Center. Her husband had encouraged her by offering to help more with the home responsibilities and reduce his involvement with School of Medicine committees at work. And the whole family dedicated itself to getting mom through her residency. Marilyn had been interested in Obstetrics since Elizabeth Larsson, MD (CME Class of 1932), invited her at age 15 to witness a delivery at the Los Angeles County General Hospital. Starting in 1967 and for the next 27 years Marilyn helped organize Women in Medicine get-togethers during the School of Medicine’s Annual Postgraduate Convention. In 1976, 70 women of all ages and from all parts of the country, either graduates or students of the School of Medicine, met during the 44th Annual Alumni Postgraduate Convention. “It must be the largest meeting of women doctors in the whole country—if not the world,” said Marilyn, hostess for the occasion. A three-hour discussion on the rewards and frustrations of being a woman in medicine followed a pot-luck dinner. It was mostly encouragement from the older to the younger women. Marilyn says she loved delivering babies. She sometimes meets people at the market who recognize her, tell her that she delivered a son or daughter, and want to provide an update. At one School of Medicine class dedication she observed that she had delivered two of the freshman students. Because the Herbers have lived in Loma Linda as long as they have, she can say that she has delivered many of the students graduating over the years from the School of Medicine. After one baccalaureate service two other students came to her and mentioned how much they appreciated her attendance at their graduation. She considers it to have been a special privilege and great blessing to have taken an obstetrics and gynecology residency and then year’s later get to meet the people she delivered.